John Byrne is an industry veteran that many people know from the days of ATI. This capable salesman managed to reach some of the highest possible positions in AMD after the acquisition of ATI.

In January this year he announced he would retire from AMD after he officially joined AMD in 2007. Don’t be fooled, John was part of ATI between 1995 and 2007, as CEO of Advanced Technologies Inc and VML Ltd, a sales company that was responsible for the Northern European market. This sales machine managed to generate annual sales of around $200m annual sales and yes, it did represent both Nvidia and ATI; along with Cyberlink, Powerchip Semiconductors, Vanguard Corporation and others.

In 2007 John joined AMD VP Worldwide Graphics and Chipset Sales and over the years he became a Senior Vice President and Chief Sales Officer at AMD. His last job was Senior Vice President and General Manager at AMD, responsible for AMD’s $3bn+ processor (CPU), discrete graphics and workstation graphics businesses. One can say that he did his best under the circumstances during his time at AMD, and at one point he was even named turnaround exec of the year. He did a lot to advance CPU and graphics sales and he can do great job at pushing some good products.

John took some time off, but we just got a confirmation that this capable salesman and strategist joined Dell as Global VP of Sales and Strategy. He was ex AMD CEO Rory Read's wingman, so we were not surprised to see John join Dell. They both joined different parts of the company, but it is still not surprising that they ended up in the same outfit.

Michael Dell will obviously use his services, but we still don’t know who John will report to. We wish him well and we are happy to see him sticking around in our industry.

While Microsoft's Windows 10 OS might launch on July 29th that did not stop Dell to launch its Windows 10 pre-sale.

As of today, Dell will allow you to pre-order certain Dell devices with Windows 10 pre-installed and these will ship out on July 29th. Currently available to US customers, the pre-sale will include some of Dell's latest as well as most popular devices including Inspiron 11 2-in-1, Inspiron 15 notebook or Dell XPS 8700 and Inspiron desktop system.

According to Dell, the company has worked closely with Microsoft to develop Dell experiences that will maximize teh capabilities of the upcoming Windows 10 OS.

This pre-sale will allow Dell customers to get a Windows 10 device on July 30th, just a day after the Windows 10 will be officially launched, thanks to Dell's Same Day Ship service.

The global thin and terminal client market slumped during the first quarter of 2015, declining 7.8per cent.

According to the beancounters at the market in the first quarter of 2015 struggled to keep momentum amidst a lack of drivers and the impact of currency devaluation across regions.

Shipments slowed to 1.19 million units, with many projects delayed or scaled back. Outside of Asia Pacific excluding Japan few regions managed to see on-year volume growth.

IDC expects a stronger second half for 2015 as a number of delayed projects in Asia Pacific excluding Japan have to resume, but overall volume for 2015 has been lowered from 5.98 million units in the previous forecast to 5.71 million, with long term growth remaining modestly positive.

The figures appear to surprise IDC as the technology makes absolute sense in a modern business environment.

Jay Chou, senior research analyst, Worldwide Enterprise Client Device Trackers at IDC said that with IT and users alike increasingly more receptive to remote desktop computing, IDC maintains shipment volume should see steady single-digit growth annually through 2019.

Dell has opened an Internet of Things (IoT) lab in Limerick, Ireland as part of a cunning plan to create a base and research arm for its brand new IoT division.

In a statement Dell said that the facility will help create innovative, industry-leading solutions. When we were last in Limerick we thought that the Galway Hooker beer was the leading solution.

Dell is getting all excited about the IoT market's potential. Last month it formed an IoT division focused on solutions that span hardware, software and services and will apparently be separate from the IoT lab in Santa Clara which is being run with Chipzilla.

Dell said that the new facility complements the existing Dell Solution Centre in Limerick, and will bolster Dell's portfolio by providing European customers with a dedicated space to build, model, architect and test IoT solutions and get them to market faster.

Dermot O'Connell, Dell's executive director for OEM solutions in EMEA in Limerick, customers will have a flexible and scalable foundation for developing market-ready solutions with a trusted, reliable partner.

"Our specialists in the lab can reduce the complexity of IT and help customers bring their ideas to life," said. Provided it is a stormy day and you can get the tower high enough into the storm.

Dell also announced its first IoT product the Dell IoT Gateway which uses hardware to the firm's Wyse thin client terminals, but runs Wind River Linux, Ubuntu Core or Windows 10 IoT.

Dell is working with IoT specialist ThingWorx that sees it joining the firm's system integrator programme as a global system integrator, offering professional services for IoT.

While Dell is refusing to mention anything about its replacement for the XPS 13, the XPS15 has been getting a lot of attention at Computex Taipei.

The laptop was one of Microsoft's biggest new hardware partner announcements but we were not allowed to touch it, in fact a security guy gave us a cold hard stare if we looked at it too long. Horray for smartphone cameras.

The first thing you notice though is Infinity Display and you can tell the difference even through a crowded room particularly this larger XPS offering.

Basically this appears to be a larger XPS 13 – but what is wrong with that? It has the form factor of of a 13-inch laptop, a harmony of metal and Carbon Fibre and, and it's "Windows 10 ready." So we are unlikely to ever see one ever again until Windows 10 launches.

It seems that everyone is wanting to copy Apple in putting a USB Type-C port onto their hardware.

For those who came in late, A Type-C port measure just 8.4mm by 2.6mm. This means it's small enough to work for even the smallest peripheral devices.

With Type-C, a USB cable's both ends will be the same, allowing for reversible plug orientation. You also don't need to worry about plugging it in upside down.

Type-C USB supports USB 3.1 and has a top speed of 10Gbps. It also has much high power output of up to 20V(100W) and 5A.

This means in the future laptop computers can be charged the way tablets and smartphones are now, via their little USB por

Jobs' Mob installed a USB Type-C port on its 12-inch MacBook. Now it seems that Dell is following suit in its 11-inch tablet and Asustek Computer is planning to launch gaming notebooks with USB Type-C support in the second half of the year.Dell's 11-inch Venue 11 Pro is hitting the shops in September or October and will adopt Windows 10 operating system and the USB Type-C technology to allow connection to its docking station.

What makes the tech a little more sexy is that it allows for bi-directional power, so apart from charging the peripheral device, when applicable, a peripheral device could also charge a host device.

Type-C USB will significantly cut down the amount of wires needed to make devices work. Of course apple over egged the pudding by only supplying one on the macbook making it nearly useless.

Worldwide PC shipments were slightly better than anyone expected, but are still falling according to beancounters at IDC.

More than 68.5 million PCs were sold in the first quarter of 2015 (1Q15), a year-on-year decline of 6.7 per cent, and slightly ahead of previous projections.

IDC said that after a strong second half of 2014, thanks to the Windows XP refresh and pockets of price-driven consumer activity, the Q1 market faced multiple headwinds.

There was an inventory build-up of Windows Bing based notebooks, commercial slow down following the XP refresh and constrained demand in many regions due to currency fluctuations and unfavorable economic indicators.

Growth and volume declined with Q1 shipments below 69 million units, the lowest recorded volume since Q1 2009.

IDC's Rajani Singh, Senior Research Analyst, Personal Computing said that despite the decline, PC shipment in the United States declined at a slower rate than all other regions in first quarter, outperforming worldwide trends for the eleventh consecutive quarter.

"The strength from key vendors, adoption of emerging products, improvements in the consumer market and in the broader economy are all positive signals,".

He said that the launch of Windows 10 will consolidate the best of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. In addition to the free upgrade for consumers for a year after the release, Windows 10 should be a net positive as there is pent-up demand for replacements of older PCs.

Only part of the installed base needs to replace systems to keep the overall growth rate above zero for rest of the year, he said.

"Although shipments did exceed an already cautious forecast, the market unfortunately remains heavily dependent on pricing being a major driver, with entry SKU volume masking a still tenuous demand for higher priced systems that is needed to sustain a more diverse PC ecosystem. Pricing pressure is bringing many premium SKUs into formerly mid-level pricing tiers.

"As more vendors find it increasingly difficult to compete, we can expect additional consolidation in the PC market."

Lenovo held onto the top position with 13.4 million units, and grew 3.4 per cent. The vendor continued to aggressively court expansion outside of Asia, especially closing the gap with competition in EMEA. The company also moved ahead of Apple to capture the third position in the US,

Best of show

HP remained in the number two position, shipping nearly 13 million PCs with growth surpassing 3 percent, driven primarily by resilient growth in US and EMEA. Although growth slowed from earlier in the year, HP & Lenovo continued to outpace the market and their nearest competitors.

Dell came in at the number 3 position, shipping over 9.2 million units, registering a year-over-year decline of -6.3 per cent, its first negative quarter since 2013Q2. Strong results in the U.S. and EMEA in Q1 2014 contributed to a poor year-over-year comparison.

Acer continued to see good acceptance of its Chrome offerings, Acer shipments slowed in the first quarter - particularly in EMEA where it had seen a strong rebound in mid-2014 but faced pressure from other market leaders in the fourth quarter.

ASUS had a solid quarter with worldwide volume of 4.8 million and growth of 4.4%, supported by growth in Asia. This brought the company just behind Acer - effectively a tie for fourth place.

Dell's barrel edge design on the Venue 10 7000 tablet clearly takes ideas from Lenovo's Yoga Tablet range only it doesn't double up as a stand for the tablet without the keyboard.

Under the bonnet is a quad-core Intel Atom Z3580 processor coupled with 2GB of RAM. It features 10.5-inch OLED touchscreen with 2560x1600 pixels resolution. It sports an 8-megapixel RealSense depth camera from Intel, just like the Dell Venue 8 7000 Series tablet. It bears a 2-megapixel front camera, apart from 16GB of built-in storage. The Dell Venue 10 7000 tablet packs a huge 7000mAh battery and measures 598 grams.

Neil Hand, vice president, Dell Tablet Group said Dell customers want more from their tablets."They want to be productive and get work done wherever they are, they want a great entertainment experience, and they want to carry something that turns heads.

The Venue 10 7000 gives our customers all that and more: enhanced productivity with a full-sized keyboard and Android for Work, a brilliant display and innovative features like the Intel RealSense snapshot depth camera, all wrapped in a gorgeous design."

It seems that if you have worked as a CEO for AMD you have to take a step down if you want to work for somewhere like the tin box shifter Dell.

Former AMD CEO Rory Read has seemingly stepped down the executive ladder by taking a job at Dell to lead global commercial sales.

Read will be responsible for sales planning and execution as president of worldwide commercial sales and chief operating officer of the company's Enterprise Solutions Group. He will report to Marius Haas, who is Dell's Chief Commercial Officer and President of the Enterprise Solutions Group.

Read was AMD's CEO from August 2011 until October last year, when he stepped down and was replaced by Lisa Su. Read did his best to turn around AMD, fired top managers, revamped the product roadmap, cutting staff, and entering new markets outside PCs like custom chips.

AMD even managed a few quarters of profits, but remained financially unstable.Analysts think that Read's Dell job is mostly about managing partnerships and will be better for him in the long term.

Read was hired as AMD's CEO because the chip-maker had to foster better relationships with PC makers. But in the ensuring restructuring, AMD's priorities shifted and it went after new markets in an effort to cut its reliance on PCs.

Read perhaps won't be a candidate in line to succeed Dell CEO Michael Dell. But Dell is larger than AMD, with more revenue, market capitalization and customers, giving Read a better chance to grow professionally.

Back at CES, we had a chance to see and feel the Dell XPS 13 notebook, which is the smallest 13-incher that we have seen so far.

There is no doubt that this Broadwell-U fifth generation Core i5 powered notebook is something special, but we have noticed that in Europe it costs an arm and leg.

The basic configuration in the USA starts at very reasonable $799 + tax and, and in this SKU Dell offers a Core i3 5010U, 4GB RAM and 128GB HDD and non-touch display.

The cheapest XPS 13 in Europe costs €1329.00 or $1511.40 at today's exchagne rate, which is almost double the price. Let's be clear in Europe you will get a Core i5 5200U, 8GB or RAM and 256 GB HDD with a touchscreen display, which is clearly a faster and better equipped than US basic $799 configuration.

If we want to compare apples to apples, the same configuration in US would set you down $1099.99, again significantly less than what you would have to pay in Europe.

In case you are happy with spending €1499.00 you can even get the Core i5 5600U, a CPU option that currently is not available for US customers. There is even a 512GB SSD option is available in Germany too.

We believe that $799 is really nice price for the XPS13 inch machine, but €1329 with tax is simply too much. In the US you end up paying a bit more, as $799 is the price without sales tax that ranges between zero and 12 percent and in the worst case scenario, if you live in Arkansas the same notebook will cost $894.88. Best-case scenarios like Delaware means the $799 notebook is $799 as there is no sales tax there, in Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon.